The bad weather trope

It's been raining for a week in Wellington. This is a great affront to people in my office. How dare the weather not be sunny? How dare the fog gather low on the ocean, or the mist drift out of the pines? How dare it rain?

The rain - this bad weather - has signaled a change in everyone's character. They are grumpy, or gloomy, or wretched, or wicked (someone used my mug, for example). We all well know that weather is empathetic. It reflects the mood or personality of characters. You know something bad's coming if the weather's bad.

If it's cloudy and a wind picks up, check that you're mood-meter isn't registering at "morose". If you're looking out over the ocean while you wait for your friend or family member to dock, there's bound to be some nefarious character aboard. Make sure to take an umbrella with you if you're going to a funeral. And if you're headed to battle, don't wear too much metal, just in case you attract the lightning.

For example. There's Wuthering Heights, with its dark brooding hero over the dark windswept (wiley windy) moors. And we've got our hard-boiled hard-drinking detective at eleven o'clock "with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain" in The Big Sleep. I can't help thinking of Highlander (you could put a full stop there, really) with the dramatic lightning storm as the Kurgen kills Rameriz. In Casablanca, it's raining when Rick gets Ilsa's letter saying that she cannot go with him or ever see him again. As Rick reads the letter (held conveniently still for long and for a reasonable length of time) we watch the water blur and wash away the ink of her sad message - as though it was his own tears.

It was the arrival of the Royals that set off the rain. They flew towards us, and the fog billowed up out of the ocean and covered the entire city. They came, and the bad weather came. Sure, they've left now, but what did they do while they were here? What will be uncovered in their wake?


My boss has used the bad weather trope to assign to me a moody, morose and melancholy aspect. I like mist in the pine forest too much. I have an unsettling appreciation of fog over the city. I don't mind walking in the rain. What dark things must go on in my mind?

On the contrary, I think it displays a positive aspect of my personality. I simply don't think the "bad weather" is as bad as everyone says. I've seen how important it is. I like being outside in it, and I like being inside out of it. 

I even don't get morose and melancholy when it delays my ferry by two hours. Three hours. I'll still get there, for a nice weekend of tramping in the ocean.



So, tell me, what do you think about "bad weather"? If someone's walking towards you and it suddenly thunders, do you cross the road (under the safety of an umbrella ? When you see lightning, do you reach for your sword?

It hurts?